The goal of this program is to elucidate altered central nervous system states and etiological mechanisms which underlie the impaired attention in two human disease states: schizophrenia and petit mal epilepsy. It is our conviction that the attention impairment is a key symptom in these two illnesses and that increased understanding of it can lead to clarification of the causes and other symptoms and to eventual remediation efforts. To pursue this goal, we study patients suffering from these diseases, and animal models in the rat and monkey. In our human studies the independent variables include or have incuded the presence versus the absence of the disease itself (i.e., comparison of the clinical groups of interest with relevant control groups); the presence versus the absence of the symptom or its sign in clinical or other groups; centrally-acting drugs; distraction. Dependent variables include behavior (attention, measures of cognitive ability); EEG and evoked potentials. In the animal studies the independent variables include centrally-acting drugs; electrical stimulation of the brain; lesions of the brain created by asphyxia or other means. Dependent measures include behavior (measures of attentive or cognitive capacity); measures of brain electrical activity (EEG, evoked potentials, single unit activity). BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Golub, M. and C. Kornetsky. Reticular stimulation in the pregnant rat: Effects on offspring. Physiology and Behavior. In press, 1976. Kornetsky, C. Pharmocology: Drugs Affecting Behavior. Wiley Interscience, New York: July, 1976, in press.